Posted on 10/06/2016 4:00:53 AM PDT by expat_panama
The "quiet catastrophe" is particularly dismaying because it is so quiet, without social turmoil or even debate. It is this: After 88 consecutive months of the economic expansion that began in June 2009, a smaller percentage of American males in the prime working years (ages 25 to 54) are working than were working near the end of the Great Depression in 1940, when the unemployment rate was above 14%.
If the labor force participation rate were as high today as it was as recently as 2000, nearly 10 million more Americans would have jobs.
The work rate for adult men has plunged 13 percentage points in a half-century. This "work deficit" of "Great Depression-scale underutilization" of male potential workers is the subject of Nicholas Eberstadt's new monograph "Men Without Work: America's Invisible Crisis," which explores the economic and moral causes and consequences of this:
Since 1948, the proportion of men 20 and older without paid work has more than doubled, to almost 32%. This "eerie and radical transformation" -- men creating an "alternative lifestyle to the age-old male quest for a paying job" -- is largely voluntary.
Men who have chosen to not seek work are two and a half times more numerous than men that government statistics count as unemployed because they...
...Only about 15% of men 25 to 54 who worked not at all in 2014 said they were unemployed because they could not find work.
For 50 years, the number of men in that age cohort who are neither working nor looking for work has grown nearly four times faster than the number who are working...
...The "economically inactive" have eclipsed the unemployed...
...Eberstadt does not say that government assistance causes this...
...America ranks 22nd, ahead of only Italy, in 25 to 54 male labor force participation...
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
You make a very good & depressing case for that lifestyle. Sadly I know you’re correct in many cases.
That’s past, for the most part anyway. Shame as a concept is becoming outmoded. You need to do something very serious (and get caught) nowadays to be shamed.
I know for a fact there are thousands of young ladies ‘working’ off the books in NYC as sugar babies. There are sites devoted to it.
>>Touting conservative principles is fine and dandy as long as it doesn’t negatively impact YOUR life.
...
>>>>Having a little trouble sticking to things relevant to the current discussion?
Tell us how dying in the process of conserving American principles isn’t relevant to the current discussion, smart ass.
I think you’re hitting the nail on the larger issue.
In a world where it seems like every other person is gaming the system (at a significant tax cost to you), the natural human impulse is to try to get in on it as well. Become the screwer so you’re not the screwee, so to speak.
And the problem is that our corrupt systems that let so many take advantage can serve as that vehicle for the previously honorable to climb on board to. (Especially at the Democrats’ wish—don’t you think they love having white males now join the dependent class!?!)
We need a massive rollback that includes kicking the vast majority of the “disabled” off of the disabled rolls—and making them take at least some sort of job that they can perform if they want any government support at all.
That’s what’s known as a modern relationship!
(Actually it is as old as time.)
>>You need to do something very serious (and get caught) nowadays to be shamed.
Just like the culture described in Romans chapter 1. Same ol.
Got Due Penalty?
How’s that drug resistant Gonorrhea thing workin’ out for generation XBox?
Rut Roh!
Who is John Galt?
I am not “dismissing” them, I am just pointing out how silly of a point it is to say that men should not marry because women are evil and tie men down to a life of a wage slave to support the evil female objectives. If we followed God’s plan for marital bliss and family life there would be no problem.
Easy ‘disability’ is part of the scam...
There’s no mystery to this. We live in a country where, for a brief historical period anyway, government can provide bread, circuses, and welfare because it has the World’s reserve currency, and can issue massive amounts of unbacked, fiat currency and debt through the Federal Reserve. $20 Trillion in debt has to go somewhere and it has gone into the pockets of citizens who decided they don’t need to work.
3 generations ago, every man HAD to work. A working man is a more responsible man, so family formation, child-rearing and church-going was also more common.
Bingo. But where would he go today?
“Unlike myself, you will have nowhere to defect to, unless you want to live in Antarctica with penguins.
This is it, this [the USA] is the last country with freedom and possibility.”
—Yuri Bezmenov, circa 1984
Glad to hear of your wedded bliss. I did realize from your first statement that you do not fully believe in the Word of God. Also, I have seen you make this comment, at least I think it was you, several times on FR. To me, and I am by no means trying to engage in a war of words with you, your comments do not seem to be doing a good job of “looking at the experiences of those who are younger than me.” Hopefully not many young conservative men will follow your advice.
I see this as the reality of Ann Rands Atlas Shrugged peeing played out in real life.
I am one of those “suckers” enslaved by the system, going to work, paying way too much in taxes to pay a socialist system I don’t agree with, to support a culture with values counter to everything I believe and stand for.
More and more I ask myself, “why am I supporting this?”
The minute I can survive and live without supporting it is the exact minute I am “going Galt”.
The only question, as in the book, will be if I am an outlaw at that point.
The problem is Obama, Hillary, and their voters have a different definition of “American principles” than we do. I am afraid their definition of “American principles” has won and is now the country’s operating principles.
“Stop the handouts, and people will get jobs, or go hungry.”
After they steal, at gunpoint, whatever you and I have, first! ;)
“Everything is working as planed. Remove men as providers for wife and children while making them dependent of government and thus reliable Democrat votes.”
+1
You beat me to it! ;)
..Eberstadt does not say that government assistance causes this..
So how are they surviving if not on Government assistance of 1 type or the other?
I am old and have little to show for decades of work.
I need a healthier lifestyle than a long commute, a seat in an office in front of a computer, and waiting for the weekend.
I am tired of paying for the parasites.
It is past time to join the parasites and make the best of it.
Need to downsize my life and concentrate on being happy.
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